Karl let Russell Crowe go, saying, "I think Giverney must not write all that well because the guy's spread all over the f.u.c.king store, C."

Candy didn't understand this reasoning. "Which means he's popular, popular big time. Which means he's good."

"No, it doesn't, C. If everybody's reading this f.u.c.king book, do you suppose this Giverney's been wasting much time on how good his writing is? Consider: if everybody and his old gran's reading it, how good could it be? I don't know about your gran but mine's so f.u.c.king stupid she gets the news of the day from cereal boxes. I bet she eats this stuff up." Karl punched a finger toward the book in Candy's hands.

"Well, we'll see. You read yours and I read mine and we'll just see."

JARDIN DES PLANTES.

SIXTEEN.

Nathalie sat alone on a dark green bench in the Jardin des Plantes. At first she had been sitting in sunshine but now sat in the gathering shadows, waiting. Nathalie closed her eyes as she had often done, feeling as if she were drifting in and out of consciousness. When she opened her eyes the garden colors seemed too diffuse, melting into one another. She could not seem to grasp them-the blue (or was it green?) of the peonies; the etiolated, pale yellow (or perhaps white?) of the lilies.

She waited for Patric; she had been waiting all day. A weariness settled over her like the shadows in which she sat. She had strolled around the old-fashioned zoo and along the paths of the alpine garden, taking in little of it.

Had he forgotten? Had he gone to L'Herault to be with his wife and children? Michel, Leon, Angelique. She knew their names. They lived in Roquebrun all summer long in the country house. Villerosalie. It was a beautiful word. Was Rosalie the name of someone in the family or had the name been inherited with the house?

Nathalie wished she had paid more attention to details, had stored up flourishes and embellishments against such a time as this when Patric didn't come. But of course she hadn't foreseen this, had she? She had been understandably careless in not committing things to memory. In not staring at them until the little pansies along the rail of the Cafe Dumas burned into her brain-the exact shade of purple, the velvet texture of the petals, or the white glare of the waiter's ap.r.o.n.

There had been so much to choose from for memory's sake, such as the rim of lavender anemones against the dark green hedge over there; or the lighted lamps along the Champs-Elysees; coffee and brioche sitting outside in the chilly last days of October along the Boulevard St.-Germain; the Americans so well dressed, heavy with gold jewelry in the Rue de Rivoli; Patric's arm around her waist as they walked, as if he could never get close enough.

The shadows were turning into night. She tried to see her future; it was full of blank pages. They fluttered away like the pages of a calendar in a film, dated but empty.

It was too close to the end now, thought Ned, as he read over these pages. Perhaps it was the end. He might have condemned Nathalie to sitting on the green bench forever. It hardly seemed fair. Ned got up and moved to the window. He looked down and saw Saul sitting in the little park. There were two men he'd never seen before sitting on a bench farther along the path. Seldom did anyone cut across the park, even more rarely did anyone sit in it. He wondered who they were for a moment and then went back to his story, wanting to rescue Nathalie. But there was nothing to hold her to the gardens or the page.

After Candy and Karl had purchased the books they had taken the A train to Chelsea and had a cup of coffee in a cafe there and marveled that this was what people did. This is how they spent their time. Now they sat on a bench near a flower bed, mostly planted with zinnias, in a little triangular park in Chelsea and compared books. Candy decided he liked Giverney's flap copy better; Karl liked Isaly's face more than Giverney's.

"Your guy looks too f.u.c.king pretty and rich," said Karl. "Look at that chin, that coat-cashmere, it looks like." But Karl had to admit his jacket copy sounded a little slow going: the two main characters, the man and the woman, keep almost meeting yet never do. So where's the solace in that? Karl frowned.

"I don't like the sad stuff," said Candy. "I mean, you read a book, you want to escape the sad stuff, right?"

Karl grunted. "Maybe. Maybe not."

"This Giverney writes genre books."

Karl frowned. "You sure you're p.r.o.nouncing that accurately?"

" 'Books'?"

" 'Genre,' a.s.shole." Karl swatted Candy on the shoulder with Solace.

Candy shoved Karl's hand away, settled his jacket on his shoulders. "Go easy on this suit. f.u.c.ker cost me three grand."

"This guy"-Karl was looking at the author's photo on the back of the book-"he could use a decent suit. I wonder what kind of money's in this racket. I mean for guys like Isaly. Now your guy Giverney's obviously rolling in it, but my guess is only a few get that kind of money," he said, knowledgeably. He took out his cigar case.

Candy waved Don't Go There back and forth. "Three or four mil, that's what the girl at the counter told me."

"What? Jesus Christ, that's more than the both of us make in a couple f.u.c.king years."

Candy put the book down. "We do all right, listen. And we're particular, remember."

"Half a million we got for the last job. That's only a quarter apiece. And this joker gets that kind of money for a d.a.m.ned novel? A mystery at that? It isn't even one of your literary type books. At least my guy's literary."

"But ain't that what you were saying in the bookstore?" said Candy. "If everybody including your old gran was reading this guy, then how good can he be? Anyway, it ain't as much as writers like Tom Clancy and who's-it get. That's more like fourteen, fifteen million."

"Who's 'who's-it'?"

"You know, that horror guy, one you were talking about. He wrote that book where Jack Nicholson goes berserk with a hatchet?" This was one of their favorite movies.

Karl lit his cigar (Cuban) and waved his platinum lighter into a couple of figure eights like fireflies homing in on Peter Pan. "Stephen King."

"This clerk was talking about what this publisher, Queeg and Hyde"-Candy held the spine out-"pays that auth.o.r.ess that writes the chick-jep books."

"What's that? Hebrew?"

"Nah. It means girl in a jam. Jeopardy."

Karl shrugged. "I don't get it."

"Me, neither. f.u.c.k, you could waste your entire life doing this s.h.i.t." He held up his book.

"Yeah, but at three or four mil a crack, that's not exactly wasting, Candy."

"Money ain't everything, Karl."

"Since when?" said Karl.

He was right at the point in the ma.n.u.script where any other writer would, in a few more pages, a chapter at most, have reached The End, and, as Saul knew he'd do, he aborted, called it quits, deep-sixed it.

Saul was sitting on his usual bench in the park, regarding the cold-looking but intrepid zinnias, still blooming along the path. On the other side of the zinnia bed sat two men who looked oddly alike, in spite of their different builds. Maybe it was the clothes. Saul knew expensive clothes. They had books, unusual enough for a couple of businessmen, but these two actually appeared to be discussing them.

He slid down on the bench, thought of going to Swill's, wondered what in h.e.l.l was his problem. He did not understand himself; he never had. Perhaps if writing was his livelihood he could see this ma.n.u.script through to a close. Saul could finish nothing-not a book, not a meal, not s.e.x. There were several women who could attest to that last bit. What was behind it? His mother's sudden death? His father's following shortly after? It was as if they couldn't live without one another, but both could live without Saul. A double shock such as that could derail anyone, but why a derailment so voluptuously self-destructive as a writer's finding himself, after having successfully published one book, incapable not of writing another, but of ending another?

Perhaps it was simply fear (if fear is ever simple) of not being able to write a book as well received as that first one. One cannot imagine coming even close to this kind of success. Saul did not think this was the reason because "success" had never meant that much to him. He certainly wanted readers, all writers did.

The h.e.l.l with it. He leaned back, stretched his arms along the back of the bench, and looked again at the two men on the other side of the path. They were still talking about these books they held, one even taking a swing at the other. All in good fun, apparently.

Saul became so curious about these two men with their books that he couldn't help himself; he saw a story. The little scene was complete within itself. That's it, isn't it? The linear world stops. The temporal world fades.

Watching them, he was cheered. There were men in the world in suits who still read books.

Sally sat at her desk in Mackenzie-Haack arranging and rearranging a vase full of deep blue delphinium. She was trying to work up the courage (if that's what she needed) to tell Tom Kidd there was some sort of plan that would harm Ned Isaly. She hated to say "plot" against him. And maybe she was reading too much into what she'd heard.

Tom Kidd was talking on the phone. He could be talking right now to Ned, the way he sounded. Sally could usually work out who he was talking to even if she couldn't hear the words. It was a contented mood she heard; it was a mood he fell into only when talking to certain people, all writers, such as Ned or Grace Packard or two or three others. Any other telephone "vampires" (Tom's word, which included people like Kikki Cross, agent; Jani Gat, publisher of a trendy little house that was trying to make it on looks and couldn't; or the would-be writers who managed to glom his phone number and pitch the books they hadn't written and never would).

Sally lifted her head and listened. Yes, it was Ned, or about Ned, for Tom had said his name. She went around her desk to lean toward his open door, but Tom's voice rose and fell, rose and fell, as gently as if he were lullabying a baby.

So it wasn't Ned for he never needed the poor-baby treatment. Ned wasn't a baby about his writing. Either Chris Llewelyn or Henry Suma, both wonderful writers, both babies about it. Chris would "go off" a novel in the middle and start whining about writer's block. Tom Kidd couldn't stand it when they started in on writer's block, since Tom didn't believe in it.

"You're bored, that's all (Tom's pep talk began). Imagine being confined with a bunch of people who can't think right, act right, and, worst of all, speak right. Mouths full of marbles, that's them, and you have to keep watching what they're doing and listening to them for months, for years. So just to be bored by this is a miracle. I'm surprised you don't go off and shoot yourself."

It was rare for him to deliver that message (since his empathy with writers was boundless), but when he did, it was delivered in Tom's lullaby tone to counteract any sting they might feel. Such a message didn't sound consoling, but it did seem to be to such a writer as Chris Llewelyn. All Tom wanted to do was talk them down from the high ledge of the Writer's Block Building.

But with Ned, Tom never had to use any of his little tricks. He talked to Ned as if Ned were an adult-a writer-adult, that is-not a full-blown actual adult, that is, not from Sally's point of view. Ned often gave the impression of zoning out on her the way teenagers do with their parents. They only pretend to be paying attention to the other guy; they were actually paying attention to whatever was going on in their self-centered, bookish little world-! and she was getting madder by the moment that Ned wasn't taking this whole Bobby-Clive plot more seriously.

"What's up with you?" Tom Kidd was standing by her desk.

"What? Me? Nothing."

"You were gnashing your teeth."

"No, I wasn't. People don't really do that." She swung around to her computer screen and started hitting the keys. Gibberish.

Tom Kidd stood there. "That was Eric. He says he won't meet the deadline because he's going to burn the ma.n.u.script."

Seeing he'd dropped her teeth gnashing, Sally swung back to face him. "That would interfere with the publishing schedule. Except Eric always makes fifteen copies, so I'm sure he'd put one aside. How much longer does he need?"

"Couple extra weeks. Can you imagine? Making yourself crazy just because you'll be two weeks late?"

"Production will break out in hives if a book's two days late. You know them."

"Oh, them."

"Yes, well, oh-them got on his case a couple of years ago because he didn't get galleys back on time. I can think of a few other scripts Mackenzie-Haack might want to throw on the pyre."

Tom smiled and leaned against the doorjamb. "Inform me."

"Well, there's Dwight Staines's ma.s.sive new book. Then-" There was nothing to do but tell him, though she felt the pa.s.sing on of information gleaned from listening outside somebody's door would work against her in the end. "I've got to tell you something. It's-" Sally stopped.

Tom had lit a cigarette and was blowing the smoke away from her.

Why didn't she say it? I think they're trying to ruin Ned Isaly. What was that bird with the tongue of fire that, after delivering its burden of knowledge, fell to Earth with the flames extinguished? The thing that kept it soaring was what it knew.

Ned was trying to call Tom Kidd. The line was intractably busy. Even the busy signal sounded like one of those roadwork drills.

He turned to look out of the window, down at the park. A fringe of branches hid most of it; he couldn't see the zinnia bed. A restless wind whipped the branches apart.

Was that Saul down there? The wind moved his line of vision and he saw that old cat that hung out walking on the path. They had never known where it came from, and it was never around when the tramp and his dog were. The cat looked well fed.

He'd leave in a moment. For now, Ned leaned his forehead on the cold gla.s.s and watched the wind tearing at the leaves and looked at the sky, thinking how dusk looked like dawn, and then thought of Pittsburgh's smoggy dawns. City snow. He could see himself at the end of that bridge (what bridge was it?) ornamented by four panthers, two on each end. The bridge spanned Panther Hollow. He had stood looking at the statues, licking an ice cream cone with three scoops of ice cream. Chocolate. Strawberry. Vanilla. Well, he couldn't be sure of that, could he? Was he even certain there'd been a bridge spanning Panther Hollow? Was he even sure about Panther Hollow?

Stupefied, as if he'd just come awake, he took down his wind-breaker, realizing he'd drifted a long way from the Jardin des Plantes.

If she didn't tell him, Ned would have no ally with the power of Tom Kidd. He stood there, a slightly built man with milkweed hair and almost colorless eyes, the best editor in New York, one who knew what an editor was supposed to be. Tom was quixotic, a champion of the lost causes of literature.

Times she had been in Tom's office on one or another pretext-reshelving books, picking up copy, looking terribly urgent, and pretending not to listen when Ned had been there-Ned or Chris Llewelyn or one of the other good Mackenzie-Haack writers-and she'd never heard a word said about sales, promotion, publicity, or the d.a.m.ned list. It was all writing and not necessarily their writing. Writing was everything.

All of this went through Sally's mind in the time it took her to say, "Nothing. It's not important."

He waited (since it was obviously "important") but did not prompt her. He said, "That's a pretty bunch of flowers, Sal. You should always have blue flowers around."

Tom walked away and she felt she had flunked some rigorous test. She covered her face and in a minute felt tears leaking through her fingers. Coward. She reached out and pulled the book she was reading over. Wiping her eyes on her blue sleeve, she opened the book, at the same time pulling open her desk drawer and getting out a Hostess cupcake.

It was Henry Suma's new book, but it could have been any of a number of books. She read and ate and was calm once again.

Saul watched the old tomcat sit down in front of the two suits. He smiled. Story: here's the cat; here's the tension: the cat becomes the still point. Saul couldn't help himself with a layout like this; what writer could? That was arrogant, he thought, maybe a lot could, wouldn't think it worth thinking about.

Yet maybe that was it: we think like dreams. We throw all kinds of junk into the stew pot because we believe it will all go together, will cohere no matter how unlikely the match is. As fluid as a dream yet as fixed as the moon.

Focus: cat or zinnia bed, or books or suits. One or the other. As suits, he meant. The men inside them? They meant nothing. They were no problem.

Saul looked up at the sky at dusk. It was mottled, the faintest blotchy colors-yellow, blue, brown. He thought it was a New York sky. Only in New York would you see a sky like a bruise, darkening up. He checked his watch. Time for Swill's.

"Throw something."

"Yeah, like what? I ain't got nothin' to throw. You?"

Karl yawned. So did the cat. That irritated him to pieces. "It's mocking us."

Candy made a noise in his throat. "Nuts."

"I hate cats. I think I've got that phobia."

"Christ's sake, a phobia yet." Candy didn't like the way the cat was looking at him, but he wouldn't say so. "A big-a.s.s phobia."

Karl ignored the sarcasm.

"Kick it, you feel that way," said Candy, ready to go for the d.a.m.n cat himself. It just f.u.c.king sat there, as if it owned the park.

"No way. It'd be just like one of those animal-rights protesters to pop out of the trees and go for us."

"Jesus, but you got some imagination, Karl. Come on, let's find a drink." Candy yawned.

Karl thought the yawn was just like the cat's and was made even more nervous. "Yeah, a drink sounds good."

They got up with their books. They didn't like it that the cat might be thinking he'd forced them out of his place.

"That cat," said Karl, "that cat's made his bones."

Patric had left her. He had gone, thought Nathalie. He had gone to the place with the beautiful name: Villerosalie, the summer home.

He had given up on her. He had left her with nothing to hold but blank pages.